ThinkHer

My first encounter with the concept of ecofeminism was during my bachelor’s degree, in an English literature elective. Until then, my ideas of feminism, environmental questions, and scientific debates sat in separate compartments—each treated as though it belonged to a different intellectual world. But the day we read Vandana Shiva’s work as part of the English coursework, ecofeminism offered a language that pulled these strands together. It argued that the exploitation of nature and the oppression of women were not distinct injustices but expressions of the same systems of power—structures built on extraction, hierarchy, and the devaluation of labour and knowledge. As I read and wrote more about gender, politics, and science over the years, the depth of those connections became clearer. Ecofeminism did not merely place women and the environment side by side; it revealed how deeply intertwined our social, political, ecological, and scientific worlds are. What happens to land is insepar...

As writers who tries to look into history, we quickly realise that history is rarely a clean ledger of facts. Ancient worlds reach us through overlapping strata of storytelling—scripture, oral traditions, commentary, and later retellings—where myth and history entwine so tightly that disentangling them seems almost futile. As non-historians, we generally lean on secondary sources: essays, translations, interpretations—texts that carry the imaginations, assumptions, and blind spots of their authors. Verification is often impossible; what survives is less a mirror of the past than a mosaic of belief, speculation, and silence. Gargi Vachaknavi is exactly such a figure: part-philosopher, part-myth, wholly inspiring. Illustration of Gargi Vachaknavi made using ChatGPT Roughly dated to between   800 and 500 BCE , Gargi is said to have been born into the lineage of sage Vachaknu and named after the earlier sage Garga. She is often honored with the title   Brahmavadini   (one who...

Anyone with even a passing interest in philosophy or the history of science will recognize names like Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. However, most of us encounter the name 'Aspasia of Miletus' much later, despite her being a contemporary of Socrates and potentially having a significant influence on him. One might wonder why her name is so often overlooked in the textbooks we read. This article attempts to explore that curiosity. Born in Miletus (birthplace of Pre-Socratic philosopher Thales) around 470 BCE, Aspasia likely arrived in Athens around 450 BCE, possibly fleeing political turmoil. As a foreigner, she lacked Athenian citizenship and the rights that came with it. However, her relationship with Pericles granted her access to the city’s elite circles. While their union was not legally recognized, Pericles’ devotion to Aspasia was evident—he separated from his Athenian wife to live with her, an unconventional choice that sparked public scrutiny. Their relationship allowed...

In the 1980s, Carl Sagan’s popular TV series  Cosmos  introduced a new generation to Hypatia of Alexandria—a remarkable scholar, philosopher, and teacher. Sagan reminded viewers of her brilliance but also of her tragic death in 415 CE, a story that has grown to overshadow her life and intellectual contributions. Hypatia’s horrific end, dragged from her chariot and killed by a mob, is o ften recounted as the symbolic fall of the rational, philosophical traditions of ancient Greece. Sagan, among others, saw her death as marking the decline of the intellectual legacy of Alexandria, giving way to centuries of religious dominance over thought, often referred to as the “Dark Ages” in Europe. Hypatia, as painted by Raphae l But who was Hypatia beyond a martyr or a symbol of lost knowledge? What do we truly know about her life and work? To answer this, we must turn our attention to her story—not as legend, but as history. Born during a period of political and religious turmoil in Alex...